Anne Wilkinson - Nature Be Damned

1
Pray, where would lamb and lion be
If they could lay down in amity?
Could lamb then nibble living grass?
Lamb and lion both must starve;
Bird and flower, too, must die of love.

2
I go a new dry way, permit no weather
Here, on undertaker’s false green sod
Where I sit down beneath my false tin tree.
There’s too much danger in a cloud,
In wood or field, or close to moving water.
With my black blood - who can tell?
The dart of one mosquito might be fatal;

Or in the flitting dusk a bat
Might carry away my destiny,
Hang it upside down from a rafter
In a barn unknown to me.

I hide my skin within the barren city
Where artificial moons pull no man’s tide,
And so escape my green love till the day
Vine breaks through brick and strangles me.

( Parts 3 through 5 )

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Once again from the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. You can find a recording of this poem by the author at the U Toronto library website

December Post #1 - Poetry

At majoline's request, some thoughts on the year of poetry posting:

I'm finding it really hard to envision *ceasing* to post daily poems. I thought, when I wrote a series of reflections for poetree a few months ago, that I would be incredibly glad to stop, but now I'm faced with two points of consternation: one, what are the chances that I will finish the two anthologies I'm working through, and two, what am I supposed to do with things I read now?

I really struggle with the process of reading without some form of associated output, can you tell?

It's interesting how separate poem-a-day remains from my teaching. I'm teaching detailed poetic analysis and I really have no desire to try that out on the poems I post here - although this week I learned about 'zeugma' and you bet I'll post here the first poem I find in the wild with a zeugma in it. I want a whole poem FULL of zeugmas!*

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This has been your first December prompted post! Pls to be giving more prompts.

Week 1 - Poetry meme, as per majoline
Week 2 -
Week 3 -
Week 4 -



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* Tangentially, today I taught my class about Dad Jokes. I told them many zeugmas were puns, but not all puns were zeugmas, and then they wanted examples of non-zeugma puns.